China’s Vision of a Multipolar World: A Country of Struggles and Strategies

BEIJING — On a gray autumn morning, office workers in Shanghai stream into subways where not a single passenger reaches for cash. Across the city, cranes swing above half-finished towers while scooters weave through the traffic with deliveries bought and paid for by phone. It is a portrait China wants the world to see: modern, orderly, resilient.

Behind this image lies a narrative Beijing repeats with growing confidence — that its domestic struggles have become its strength, and that the world, weary of Western dominance, is ready for a different model. Officials call it the “six struggles,” shorthand for a decade of policies against poverty, corruption, pollution, technological blockades, financial crises, and hegemony itself. Together, they form the backbone of China’s claim to leadership in what it describes as an emerging multipolar order.

Six Struggles, Six Claims

The story resonates far beyond Beijing. In capitals from Addis Ababa to Brasília, diplomats speak of Chinese loans and infrastructure, of classrooms where Mandarin now competes with English. In Delhi, Jakarta, and Johannesburg, scholars debate whether China’s approach — state-led, disciplined, outward-looking — offers a workable alternative to the American order that has framed global politics since 1945.

• Poverty: Beijing says it lifted 100 million people out of extreme hardship in the last decade, and more than 800 million since the late 1970s. Rural roads, schools, and clinics are offered as proof.
• Corruption: More than five million officials have been disciplined since 2012, a campaign that has touched everyone from local administrators to generals.
• Pollution: The choking smog of Beijing, once an international symbol of unchecked growth, has eased. Air quality has improved by more than 60 percent since 2013.
• Blockade: With U.S. sanctions on chips and high tech, China turned inward, pouring billions into research and declaring its military hardware “100 percent domestic.”
• Crisis: Growth is slower than in the boom years, but leaders highlight steadiness: 5.3 percent in the first half of 2025, defying global downturns.
• Hegemony: Through the Belt and Road Initiative and newer frameworks — the Global Development, Security, Civilization, and Governance initiatives — Beijing presents itself as a reformer of the world system, not its revolutionary.

The message is clear: China has endured hardship and emerged stronger.

The Policy of “De-Americanization”

If the six struggles form the domestic foundation, Beijing describes its foreign posture as “de-Americanization.” The phrase is blunt, but officials say it simply means less dependence on Washington.

• Exports to the U.S. have fallen from nearly a fifth of the total to around 15 percent, even as overall trade has grown.
• The number of Chinese students in American universities has dropped by a quarter since 2019, with more choosing Europe, Canada, or staying home.
• In multilateral forums, China builds new blocs: BRICS expanded to 11 members with Indonesia’s entry, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization now counts Belarus and 10 observers.

At the same time, Beijing has climbed to second place in the Global Soft Power Index, overtaking Britain, even as the U.S. holds the top spot. In state media and universities, American “universal values” are dismissed as a mask for interference.

Multipolar Dreams

The appeal is most visible in the Global South. Chinese-built railways carry commuters in Kenya. Ports funded by Beijing line the Indian Ocean. Loans and aid arrive without the policy strings that often accompany Western assistance.

“China doesn’t ask us to choose between Washington and Beijing,” one African official said in a recent forum. “It asks us to build with it.”

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin was read as a signal that New Delhi will not sever ties, even as it hedges with Washington. “We are two ancient civilizations with the wisdom to manage differences,” a Chinese academic told state television.

The American Shadow

For all the optimism, China concedes America’s enduring power. The U.S. still dominates finance, technology, and culture. Netflix streams into Chinese apartments. Apple phones remain status symbols. And U.S. alliances, from NATO to AUKUS, are far from collapsing.

Yet Chinese analysts cite George Kennan, the Cold War strategist who warned that Washington’s expansion of military blocs after 1991 squandered a chance to build a cooperative order. They argue that America’s reliance on sanctions and zero-sum tactics has created openings — and resentments — that China can exploit.

A Story Under Scrutiny

The narrative, though, is not without cracks. Debt concerns shadow Belt and Road partners. Domestic growth is slower, with property markets fragile and local governments burdened by debt. Technology gaps remain in areas like advanced semiconductors.

Critics see China’s anti-corruption drive as selective, its poverty claims as reliant on narrow definitions, and its environmental progress as undermined by continuing coal expansion. Soft power, they note, is harder to measure than Beijing suggests: K-pop, Marvel movies, and American universities still outdraw their Chinese counterparts.

Still, the message carries weight. In a world fractured by war in Ukraine, sanctions on Iran, and U.S.-China rivalry, Beijing offers itself as steady, modest, and inclusive.

The claims are codified in metrics that Beijing repeats with pride. In its own telling, the six struggles mark a decade of transformation; de-Americanization a blueprint for survival.

For all the doubts, Beijing’s pitch is not one of revolution but of reform. Its officials insist China does not seek to overturn the order but to recast it — from one of singular dominance to one of plural voices.

Whether that vision endures will depend on how the numbers hold, how the partnerships survive, and how the story plays in cities beyond Beijing and Shanghai. For now, China is telling the world that its struggles are not weaknesses but the foundation of a different kind of strength.